#55 Talking Tech For Good With Daniel Howell CEO of Best For The World B Corp, Gravity Lab

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Be Better podcast. And with me today I have Daniel Howe from Gravity Labs. So, Daniel, Kia ora G'. Day. How's it going?

It's going really well. Good to be here.

Excellent. So for people who don't know you, who are you?

Oh, it's a big question.

Let's keep it, let's start with the.

Business level for now. So why I'm here probably or how you know me is I'm CEO, founder of company called Crafty Lab Technology Company. We help build kind of back. We help build business automation systems. So this could be a marketing organization system. This could be a membership management system, payment processing, a service in case things you will the exciting thing. A bunch of you, pretty much everybody would have used some of our work somewhere. You probably paid a donation to a charity that we processed or you've been to a zoo and signed in and we've set that up or you've rung a help center and that's gone through one of our connection systems. We're working with some pretty cool clients, so we have a pretty good footprint. I interact with our work every week, which is really, really exciting and that's really, really meaningful to me. Excellent.

It's always, yeah, it's kind of always cool when you meet the companies behind the companies kind of thing. I used to work in the, in the world of medical devices and I can't remember the name of the company now, but one of this company I was working for, they were kind of explaining that they were stepping back from like a frontline piece of work that they were doing. And they were so like we're going to be the company behind the Apple or behind, you know, Microsoft. Like we're a component of the company that helps them do the thing that they do really, really well. And it's kind of always interesting because you, unless you're in that world, you don't necessarily recognize that there are things behind the scenes making things work.

Yeah. So we've been partnering with a few other organizations, some of them like bna, who's another B corp. Awesome people, you know, and they come and they, they look at the design thinking and the user experience. A lot more sexy stuff. And we do the behind the curtains stuff. But who we work with is hey, we reduced email volumes, you know, service request tickets by 50. And they're super excited about that. They're super excited when it categorizes a type of case or automatically recharges a credit card that's and I go, well this isn't very sexy. They're just like, no, we love this, you know, so that's that helping people with their real pain problems, real problems work. So that gets me a buzz. As long as we're actually helping people there. But it is, yeah, we're, we're behind the curtain most of the time.

Yeah, nice. Yeah. If you could reduce email volume by 50%, I think most people in the world would be pretty happy for that. I've set myself a goal. I'm doing some work with a group called eos. I don't know if you've heard of them. Entrepreneurial operating system. It's kind of like a business planning execution tool in a box. And I'm working with Adam Harris, who's a mate of mine, he's a facilitator or an implementer of the program. And it's kind of like setting three to five year goals and really trying to, you know, get some, I guess for crazy visionaries in inverted commas like me who have got lots of big ideas but don't really like getting stuff done so much. One of the three year goals was to eliminate email from my life. So if you can help me get to 50%, I'd be pretty happy with that. It's just one of those things that it's just a chore. I feel um, it was exciting for the first couple of years but, but now I'm kind of like, yay, more emails.

So how did you get into what you do? Where did was was young Daniel walking around trying to code things and break things and like playing with computers.

I've always liked business. I like systems, I like the ways that things work. So I, I'm, I, I like how business runs an economy, how it, it runs culture in many ways in different areas, for good and for bad. For bad, unfortunately I understand how it works and I like that. But I've also, I did, I ran a websock development business through university and just a bit before university, kind of self funded myself through that. So I kind of self taught a bunch of the coding stuff and then, but the business stuff I went into management consulting which I really enjoyed a lot of it around strategy consulting, you know, why are we here? What are we trying to achieve? What's going to remove the needle? How would you deliver a customer? How do we structure up all our projects to get growth? Kind of. And for me I've hit this really sweet spot of those two worlds combining other people. Like there's better programmers than me out there, definitely, you know, and there's people who love that management consulting world more than me, but I hit the sweet spot of going, well, I understand what we're trying to achieve as a business and how we're trying to engage customers, and now I know how to actually deliver that. So most, pretty much all of our stuff is very, very low code, where predominantly use Salesforce as a platform, which is a very broad platform now, across service marketing portals, CRM systems, backend integrations, analytics does the whole breadth across that. We don't just use that, but that's primarily what we recommend. And now we can actually solve those problems. So rather than being like.

Strategy or some words on a page, we're like, how about we get you a proof of concept? We'll show you how this works. There's like, oh, what, what happens if we did this? I'm like, well, why don't we try that out tomorrow? We can just start doing that for a set of customers and see if it works or not. And that was like, mind's blowing. It's like, you can do it your way. But like a sweet spot with our customers is, hey, they've been through the consulting things, they thought about things for one or two years. It's like, yeah, we should do this. I'm like, well, you're going to do it. We can do it now.

Nice. That's super cool. And so your clients today, like you've already mentioned, you do some. You do quite a lot of work for. With, with charitable organizations. Yeah. Talk to me a bit more about. Yeah. What you do there.

Yeah. So it's a range. Right. So most of our work is commercial.

Just due to the. The size of the clients as well at that. But we work with, mainly with New Zealand's top charities.

A whole, whole range. So we work with.

Habitat for Humanity and WWF and Salvation army and Wellington, a bunch of other ones, Lifelight down in Wellington, which is really exciting. So a lot of them come to us. Or the business case, which is the initial stack up, is around.

Fundraising. I think fundraising is a lovely place to start.

Because there's a real need there. The business case stacks up. If you can help make this more efficient or you can help them generate more funds or make better user experiences for their donors, will help with their communication, engagement. So that's really good. But I really get excited about how can we help these operations run more effectively. So we had that one of our clients, probably five years ago, we walked into a fundraising system and they worked with really vulnerable Families and abusive situations. Like, well, how do you follow up and how do you do this? How do you remember? Oh, yeah, we just do. And it's like, do you always like, yeah, we think so. I said, I don't buy, like, okay, let's pivot a little bit. Let's figure out how you follow up on these kind of these issues. Because that's going to move the people. Because fundraising is to enable money so you can make an impact on the community. Yeah, yeah.

But it's how efficiently and effectively you're utilizing the funding that you've got is, is what every charity is about really, isn't it?

Yeah. And just linking it back to what's the actual program you're trying to do and asking the questions. And there's a big one in charity, there's a big gap in impact measurement, there's a big gap in.

Direction. Like what do you do that? Oh, we run courses. It's like, no, no running courses. That's, that's not, you know, that's a lead measure. What's the outcomes you're trying to achieve here? What changes in society and changes in people's lives that we're going to see? Yeah. If you can figure out that gold star of where you make a difference and relentlessly focus on that. Yeah. That's the board's job and your funder's job is to hold you accountable to where you're going to, then you'll get there. I'm a big believer in that.

Yeah.

If you get the most, and I.

Think sometimes I think that's true of, you know, for profit and not for profit. Business is, it's like, no, we do courses. We do courses. And it's like, no. Like you say no. That's the mechanism you're currently using. However, is that the most efficient mechanism to get the outcome that you want or are you just wedded to the idea that we do courses?

100%. Yeah. Because we obviously work largely in the private sector. We work with a lot of New Zealand tech companies scaling up overseas and we do like full on revenue consulting for them as well. So we'll help them go to market strategy, how they hire sales teams, how the commission structures and pricing. All these different things are very, very commercial. Yeah. There it's not just feel good nonprofit stuff. But I just 100% sold out that there are certain ways of working KPI measurement, you know, having knowing where you're going, customer engagement that the private sector approved. This is how you can run an organization. This is how you can get results. Nonprofits need to use the same type of thinking.

Yeah. Because I did a bit of work for. Do you know Cumanic Enterprises based down here?

No, I don't.

So that they're all about providing meaningful education and employment opportunities for people with intellectual disability. And they are a very commercially run charity. And the challenge that they always found was the business world looked at them as charity. Oh, you know, little pat on the head. Yeah. You don't really understand business. I'll go in, you know, good luck. But then when they were talking to the charitable foundations and trying to get funding, it's like, no, you're way too commercial. You make money. Like, why should we give you some money? Because you're making money. And so, yeah, there's this weird tension between the profit and nonprofit world, where nonprofit, like you say, they've got really great heart, but typically inefficient. You know, like I say, some lacking some of that more business mindset and acumen. And then the business side of the world has traditionally just been, we just want to make as much money as possible, and we don't really care about the outside of it.

I'd push back to say that charity is inefficient. I think most charities are brilliant. Right.

It's that little perception people are. Oh, I think they've got a few star players, most of them that are keeping them on focus. But they lack some of the structure. But they lack the structure because of the funders. Because they always lean back to funders. I worked for charities overseas, so I used to work in Africa for a couple of years. We had all these stipulations about where we could use money or not use money. Like if you just let us maximize it. This is how we think the optimal balances. Yeah, you guys waste all this money on different areas, funders. But we're not allowed to think strategically. We're not allowed to review our work and do all these things. So I think there's a. Impact measurement is an area that they need to get much better on. And then there's an investment. Investment. And top people. People run organizations and investments and top systems to help them do it. We sit there in the balance. A really interesting one. We. We're owned, so we're Gravity Lab. We've got Cyber and Revenue Lab that does revenue consulting. And then we're owned by a trust, which is Charity Lab. So that's our charity. So that's set up to help charities. And we particularly around stopping human trafficking. So we'll talk about that in a second. But what's interesting was I thought, great, let's, let's come up with like a brand that's specifically for charities and we'll call it, you know, Charity Lab. We've already got that kind of, that name. We went and talked to some of the larger charities and we said we don't want to work with a charity provider. We want to work with someone who the big companies choose to work with because we want to know that we're getting the best advice. We don't want to get interesting second rate advice.

Yeah.

So you've got this tension where you've got these charity only people that can't always get the best talent and then you've got the big, the big companies and they do charity work but they, they put their juniors on it. So they.

Yeah, yeah.

My brother in law worked a lot in the charitable sector as well. He used to come up to them and go, look, if you're going to give us a discount, you're going to help us out. You putting on your low, your juniors and local. That's not a discount, that's just providing us a cheaper option. Yeah, it's your best people at that price. That's a discount.

We've got a deal. Yeah, yeah.

Like obviously it's applying to us. It's like good call. Yeah. I'm skeptical of a lot of the volunteer stuff, especially in our industry. Rock advice. You come in two days, give some technology advice and walk away. Does that help the needle? I don't think sometimes. Sometimes it does.

Sometimes. Yep. No, I agree. And again we definitely noticed that at Kilmarnock where. Well, I guess there's two parts to that. So Michelle Sharp, who was the CEO who literally turned the business around, she was ex senior executive in Vodafone uk, had had her own tech startup. She was, she was, her and her husband moved over to New Zealand. She just had her kids and she was kind of like looking for a part job just to get out of the house and she stumbled across Kilmarnock and they, they had her as like the sales and marketing manager or business development manager at absolute pittance, you know, considering her background and experience. And then she, she got, ended up getting the role as the CEO again, massively underpaid for, you know, what she could get in the commercial world. But having someone of that level of ability who it's, they're a really interesting case study of how they were, they were fully, you know, purpose driven, had the heart and They've commercialized it and. And having done that, they've got better outcomes for the people that they're helping. Then, you know, they were more financially sustainable long term. And just generally the whole thing was. Was super good. So. Yeah, no, it's interesting, the whole charity world. I forgot what my second point was, but it obviously wasn't going to be that good.

So. Yeah. Well, tell me more about Africa. That seems like a bit of an adventure that you went on when. How old were you? When was that? What do that. Was it like. I just.

It.

Was it the classic kind of Kiwi Oe, just want to get out and go and do something? No.

I don't know. We had come back into uni, I was in management consulting and I looked at some really smart people doing some great business stuff. I've got lots to learn and I learned heaps from who I worked with and a lot of respect for them, but values, alignment of what they wanted to do, you know, let's. Let's just make more money. Let's get a fifth Audi or whatever. I'm just like, what's the point? Yeah, I've got. I've got a cheap car, you know, I do well. Right. But I've got a cheap, reliable car on purpose because it's just a car, you know.

Yeah.

Something that works for me and I respect that more and I want to know, what can my money be useful for and what sort of legacy do I want to leave? You start thinking about those things and it comes back to.

If I get up to retirement or post retirement or looking back at my life, what am I being proud of? And all of. I'm just a big believer that, you know, fancy house, a fancy car, the fancy holidays, you know, those are cool. Those are cool. Those are nice to experience every now and then, but they're hollow, you know.

So I want to do something, know that I've made a difference. That really lines my values. I'm also faith based on Christian, so that. That plays into the role of. I go, well, if this stuff's real, if I actually have that faith, you know, I've got to live it out. So how can I live it out? And a big part of that is who's the most vulnerable, who needs the most help? So I kind of pivoted in a dramatic way that you could do in your mid-20s. And I decided, well, let's try something totally different and just explore the world. And I'm so grateful I did not, because I made the biggest difference, but it totally changed my perspective. When you figure out that 99.9% of the world don't live like we live. They're not a white middle class male in New Zealand, you know, that's a very specific stereotype, you know.

Yep.

You know, and life is, you know, for better or worse, wide in our favor.

Yeah.

Many ways. And then most people live in very communal situations and most people have very simple lives and they don't have.

They don't have safety nets in place. So I was really glad. So I did a year in Uganda and then a year in northern Sudan.

Charities. So in Uganda, worked with.

The last part was working with a local organization. Had ex child soldiers with a rehabilitation. And then Swedish Thunder. I went into Sudan and worked for a water and sanitation charity. Wow, that was interesting. Very lot of development there. And that one. In terms of. I was 25, I think, at the time. And then our other expat staff got kicked out of the country.

Right.

It was a very. The government. Yeah, it's a difficult government. Very difficult. So I became the only expert stuff. So I became country director. So with 80 staff and five officers. Well, acting country director because the, the CEO was doing it remotely for some of it. But it was just like, okay, that's a big wake up call. That was a lot, you know, and your staff have been kicked out of the country and you're. It was just intense, man.

Yeah. We're not in Kansas now, Toto. Yeah.

Well, you realize what you can do and you realize what you should do as well. Like, you realize you can put up with a bit of pain, you can put up with some discomfort, but also just like, why wouldn't you? If you can help thousands of people get clean drinking water and you can help people not die of such preventable diseases, then what's my life relative to theirs? And then when you give out your life and you serve and you give back, you actually give to yourself as well. You know, it's not 100%.

It's. It's. This is the, the ironic thing. It's like purpose. So for me, like, the definition of purpose is contribution. It's, you know, the dictionary definition of purpose is the reason for which something was made or created or something's useful. Usefulness. And so for me, that's like, you know, you've got some talents, you are who you are. You've been born as who you are. How do you best serve the rest of your community, the rest of humanity? So that. And by doing that, it's. It's the ultimate act of selfishness because you get massive reward out of doing something that you're good at. But then if you're deploying it in a meaningful way where you're seeing someone else get benefit from it. And so I kind of call that the self sourcing chocolate cake of goodness, because it's just like chocolate just coming out of everywhere. Everyone's. There's more for everyone. Everyone's just getting better. You feel better, they feel better. It's like as compared to, you know, the hedonic treadmill, which is kind of where in the environment that you were in of the next car, the bigger house, which, like you say, just, there's always someone who's got one more Audi than you, or there's someone who's now got the Audi helicopter or whatever it is. And it's like you, you can never win that race because there's always someone with something better than you. But, you know, it kind of. Everyone can get an A when it comes to giving because there's so much to give. And so it's kind of like you.

Can choose your terms. This is what I'm passionate about. Like, be purposeful about what you want to do, like what matters to you. You don't need to be a saint. You don't need to. If you really care about something, go do something about it, because you said that you care about that. So go make that part of your life. You don't need to give a bunch of money to charities if you don't want to. But you can do something that matters to you. If you really care about family or you've got a heart for people who have been brought up in broken families. Maybe you could mentor somebody. Maybe there's something else. Maybe you care about the environment, you want to advocate for that. Maybe you.

You don't want to live with a certain evil in the world and you can give money to that. But it's your terms. What do you want to do? And you do the things you want to do. Like, when I want to go for a swim and have a swim, I feel good. When you want to do the thing, we're just talking, like the things that really fill your tank.

Yeah, I think it's. I think it's interesting because I think a lot of people, us perhaps feel. It's almost like. I think a lot of people feel that they're stuck in an analog world when actually the world is digital around them. It's like, I'm stuck. I have to listen to this Same radio station, but I haven't worked out yet that there's actually Internet radio and I can actually listen to a jazz blues radio station in Atlanta right now. But I'm kind of stuck on just listening to Radio New Zealand because that's. That's the programming, if you know what I mean. And I think, I think it's tough for, you know, a lot of people, I think particularly in the sort of western democratized world, they get stuck in that ruth of chasing, you know, the hollow victories of the. The trinketry. And then you're kind of stuck in that mode and it's like, I want to get out. It's almost like some kind of Stockholm syndrome. I kind of want to get out, but I actually quite like the flash holidays and the flash car. And it seems risky to go and you know, what will my friends or family think of me if I start mentoring some kid from a broken home? You know, they might think I'm weird or, you know, I think there's. Which is why I think a lot of people don't do it.

Yeah. I think you knew now then said it seems risky. It's a feeling. It's a feeling. Feelings are normal, but they're abstract, like.

Yeah.

And it's good to like layer that over with truth. So an example of that was talking with this a few years ago. Very, very clever person, started a tech company, probably had on 50 staff, you know, will financially do very well for themselves. You know, all these different things. Really cared about the specific topic. And I said, go do something about it. He's like, I don't have time. I'm like, okay, so in your business you don't have time, so you employ people. That's how it works. Go employ somebody to do that for you. And they'd never thought about that. And I was just like, come on, just think about this. You said that's really important to you. You would love to get to the end of your life and done something about it. So do it. You are clearly incredibly capable person. So I think it's just that fight against the status quo. Like people think yours risky. Just go try something. Yeah. Unless you get used to it.

Yeah.

What's.

What's the minimum sort of viable product or the. Which is. Gets what you bring from that.

Yeah. And don't think about today because we think about. We get into our ruts. We think about today and this week. What I want to do, we all do. And strategy is going, where do I want to go? And you take that to what I did or what I encourage people to do is go like, well, where do you want to be when you retire? Where do you want to be when you're 80 and when you look back at your life, what are some of the things you'd like to have ticked off?

Yeah.

And that's really important to you. Then do it. And is there any reason you can't do it this year? Yeah, probably not.

Yeah. And I think also it doesn't have to be perfect. Like you know, if, if you want to solve, like I say, kids, kids from broken homes or, or whatever. It's like you don't have to build a hundred bed facility that you know, helps people, you know, helps a thousand people a week. It's like just reach out to someone in your, in your Rolodex or in your community and go and have a coffee with them. Like it doesn't have to be. I think sometimes we kind of, we see maybe the completed thing in our head or what we think this thing could be. Oh, I, I want to set up a foundation. And it's like, well you could do that but right now, what if you just did an hour volunteering in a local charity that's aligned to that principle.

This weekend so we know about the people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And like I couldn't set up gravy lab tomorrow. Right. That's years of effort. They've gone into getting and humming and different things like you. But you can take first step along that journey as well.

Yeah, 100%.

And that's kind of leads back to our story a little bit. We decided, or particularly me decided from the get go that we want to give money away. That's part of what we want to do. It's very interesting seeing the pushback. We got the accountants like, oh no, no, no. Once you make a bunch of money, gives away and the business coach says the same thing and then even your friends and family go, oh that's nice but don't be stupid. And that's like, it's much easier to start the way you intend to. And if. And it's given me a very, a lifeline type approach. We're going, well, if we all, if it all falls to custom tomorrow we've done something.

You've done the good.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, and that's fine. Rather than if it's in, if in three years time. And that three years time has this way of pushing out. I'll do this later, I'll do this later. I'll do this later.

100 could have, should have, would have. I was listening to. Have you been on the purposely podcast with. I'll connect you guys up because you should be on his podcast as well. I was listening to. He interviewed Brianne west from E. And she had exactly the same pushback. So from pretty much I think it was from day one she committed to. I think it was initially 2% of revenue or 20% of profits whichever was the largest at the end of the year based on the B Corp framework. And yeah everyone was like no you can't do that from the beginning. You need to wait. You need to wait. She's like well no, it's part of the DNA. It's part of the ethos that we're doing so going to do it. And now she's got her own etique foundation which 20% of the I think which either has 20% ownership or there's some significant amount of money from the etique sales which are now, you know, millions going into the foundation and exactly that. If she, if she hadn't started it on day one, if she, if she just started it today there would have been probably a lot more pushback and, and, and you know, challenges and, and going from. To massive. So it's interesting the accountants need to get. Get onto this and it's.

When you actually think about it it's actually BS right like that you can't give away 20 of profit. It's BS like because you could to an investor if they demanded that of you, you could do it back. You can do it. Yeah. It just doesn't sound like you're not even got that going to Africa. You know there's different friends and family and different connections that people. Oh no. It's high risk and different thing like this. And it was. I went to some Danish places. You know, I didn't do it all very safely.

But you. It's like surely this is a good thing to do.

100 just like.

But no, no no, no. People get stuck in the risks. But the risks, you know, anxiety, stress and things like they don't eventuate most of the time.

No. But we're scared mainly worse up there than. Yeah. 100 and I think you could probably make a good argument that 25 year old blokes actually aren't that great. And even thinking about potential risks anyway it's kind of like yeah I the worst that can happen. Yeah. You know I've got a plane ticket. I can get home.

So that's cool. So back. Back to Africa.

Because obviously, you know, CEO, you're leading a company. Leadership lessons have been thrown into the deep end of leading a country and some people with turmoil, like did. Had. Had you done any sort of specific leadership training or. Or, you know, through part of like your management trading at.

At university or no university. I just. That was all way too textbook and not reality, you know, learning the nuances of people. So like my reality, my pressure people management is really empathy and care. Right. What do they actually want? What are they actually worried about? And if their kid's sick today, they're worried about their sick kid. Like, that's just what it is. What do they want to get to. They don't know how to articulate these things. It's a lot about that journey of understanding people, which I think is really important to management. And if our goals align and let's go on that journey together. They don't. Let's. Let's call it early and not go on that journey together. But biggest areas I learned is probably just got chucked in the deep end around what I could cope with.

Over there. So that's useful to figure out that you can just make yourself make your way through very difficult situations. But the CEO of the organization was just an absolute legend.

See, There was probably 500, 600 people working for the organization internationally, and I reckon Pretty much 90% of them would have taken a bullet for them. For him, myself included. You know, he's just the most inspirational person. He was just. He was just passionate about the vision. There's nothing he wouldn't do. You know, he's like, oh, we need to get this from here. He's like, I'll rent a truck. I'll drive it myself. You know, like, it was just. It wasn't above anything. And there's that sort of just like, I'm focused on the mission. I'm focused on what. Why we exist and focus on writing this wrong. I'm focused on being. Having integrity. Like, so I learned a lot from him, just. And it was just such a blessing to have lots of time with him to slowly mimic that.

Yeah, I think that's, you know, I kind of look back over my career. Of all the bosses that I had before I went out on my own, there was. There were two that stand out for all the good reasons.

And.

And there's probably 10 that stand out for like, you know, just toxic management, leadership, micromanaging, just bs, you know, attitude. But the two that really stand out, Michelle would be one of them. Like I said, I did a 12 month gig with Kilmarnock to help them get their B corp and with some sales and marketing help and. Exactly like that. It's like, you know, she, she would be on the shop floor packing boxes if, if, you know, if people. If we were down a staff member and it needed to be done. And again, yeah. Everything that you've just, you've just talked about. Yeah, it's. I think you kind of almost need to see both sides. You need to see what really bad leadership looks like to be able to know what really good leadership looks like.

Yeah. And as I kind of like analyze that, I think there's a couple of things. One is like when you're willing to do everything, you remember that we exist to get this outcome. We exist to help our customers get amazing outcomes. So we do whatever we can to do that. We exist to help each other as a team. So you do whatever you can. So it keeps you focused on that rather than the ego of like oh my role to I tool or I need to feel important. Because that's empty as well.

Yeah.

Because that's just. You're trying to just. You've got a little voice inside of you. It's going, am I worthy? You know, am I, am I good at my stuff and the things. And that doesn't answer it. You know, while if you can get past that voice and focus on what you want to do, you look back and go, yeah, I'm content with what I'm doing. Yeah.

100 I think for, for most people the phrase we we would use is your ego is not your amigo. It's telling you to do stuff to like you say, to fill the void or to make you think that you're better than you really are. Yeah. All that. I kind of feel that that's a large.

Remote for a lot of humanity if they haven't done some deeper soul searching to work out actually what is important and who am I and what is this? What can I contribute? And actually it's not about me, it's about what I can do.

I would suggest, yeah. That the vast majority of people have not done that work. Which is why the vast majority of people aren't running amazing B corps like you and aren't doing, you know, cool stuff going on volunteering in Africa. It's like if you look at the numbers, you know, globally we're still only about 0.01% of businesses globally are a B corp. So that would suggest that the vast majority are still. We just want to make as much money as possible and keep shareholders happy. I think that's, that's, you know, a flippant observation, but in general, the vast majority of companies are still. It's about money primarily rather than the good that we're doing. And I think a large part of that is just, it's, it's the ego, it's the we want to win. It's all about making the money.

Yeah. So I think there's a simplicity as well. Right. People don't like complexity.

Oh, that happens. Purpose. Okay, cool. We'll do that.

Easy. And it's, it's kind of easy to make money. You know, you could, you could go and find a niche or an industry that's really high profit that you could set up a business and probably do pretty well in really quickly. But to set up a business which has been considered and it's trying to solve a gnarly problem that hasn't been solved, that's got complexity and, you know, da, da, da, da, da. That's, that's tricky. Where also you might not be making as much money, which is what you've been conditioned that you should be doing. Yeah. Which is why people don't do it so much.

But I'm convinced that, not.

That all humans are equal, we have an equal inherent value sort of thing. And I don't need, you know, if I get paid double the average salary or triple the average salary, you know, like, where does that stop? Like, if someone else can live a fulfilling life on New Zealand's average salary, why do I need double or triple or quadruple? I might get that. You know, like. But there's a limit, right? There's a limit on. It doesn't actually make you.

Yeah, it doesn't make you happier. We know everybody knows us, but like.

I know, yeah. But it, but it still just somehow gets perpetuated. What was it? I think Spike Milligan, here's one of his famous quotes. Money doesn't buy you happiness, but it does buy you a slightly higher class of misery.

So, yeah, I mean, the data's all there. There's plenty of. Over. There's a guy, Dr. Tim Casser, I think he's a psychologist or a psychiatrist. He's something to do with brain type stuff. And yeah, he's done loads of surveys and studies and reports on, you know, the more you chase the trinkets and valuables over integrity and values, actually the worse mental health outcomes you get, you are less happy. And so the data's there. Yet the world is conditioned to make you chase bigger, better, faster, stronger, more money. It's. It's really strange. I remember there was. It was on the news probably about, I don't know, a year or two ago now, but I was listening to Radio New Zealand or something in the car and they said, you know, economic. Oh, yeah, there was a big thing on, you know, mental health. You know, mental health statistics are down, you know, or, you know, getting worse. You know, more people are saying that they're less happy. But in good news, consumer spending's up this quarter and you kind of go, you haven't made the connection to like the. The consumer capitalist society that we're in. Buy, buy, buy, consume, consume, consume is making part of the mental health thing worse. Like you haven't, you know, it was a slight. The juxtaposition of the two stories on the news. It's like you haven't worked it out. If you have, you don't care and you're willing to. Yeah. Perpetuate the story.

Yeah, yeah.

Interesting stuff. So. So it sounds like contribution, purpose, meaning. Has that been a part of your life from early, early days?

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely. I just.

I have a sense or a value set where part of the surf, like I won't be part of surf. I actually don't care about legacy. I don't care if anybody remembers me or not. Some people talk about that, but that's ego once again.

But I'd like to make a difference and I actually think you can in massive ways and influencing other people and you can do something. I'm very proud that I can. At the end of the day, particularly with some of the work I've done, charities, but also the funding or stopping human trafficking. But there's literally a list of people that got saved because of the work we did.

Have you met those people?

No, I haven't met any of the vector. I'm going over and. Oh, end of next month, do work in Sydney and then go to Thailand to meet some of the crew that we've got. We fund or the sole funder of Runnerset foundation, which is eight rescue agents. Right. So we basically have an arrangement for them. Perfect. Charity arrangement was like, we'll sort out money. Yep. We'll give you recognition. You just do the job I don't want. You see, I'm wasting all your time trying to do fundraising and different things like this. Yeah. Like, what do you need? And then we put in a little bit best practice. We talked to some other people, like, you know, mental health, you know, and stuff for them. We had some stipulation that came in, like, you guys must get regular therapy and counseling because dealing with that's a.

Pretty tough job, I'd imagine.

And they don't get a choice. Right. There's. Oh, we're fine. It's like, you're not, you're not. Let's be real. Like, you just think the fact that you think you're fine means you need it. Yeah, yeah.

100%. Yeah. I'm good. I'm good. So what made you choose that as a charity?

That's a good question. I did a little bit of work in Wellington with some friends who were looking at anti human trafficking in New Zealand. Because there was human trafficking and sex trafficking in New Zealand. Very sad. It's everywhere. And then working with ex child soldiers, I think in Uganda was very impressionable because there's nothing more evil than.

Yeah.

Stealing kids from a school, literally taking them, making them slaves, turning into soldiers, making them sex slaves, all of this. And these are kids. Like, there's nothing more evil that you could do to that. Like, it's just everything evil all at the same time.

So that was very impressionable. And then coming back to like sitting there. Cool. We can help New Zealand charities, and the best way we can help the people already helping Kiwis and in our country is to help them with their systems and their ways of working. But where can money make a big difference? And actually, I'm a believer that if you pay the investigators to find people, when you go in there with guns and you rescue them and then you prosecute them and you prosecute the corruption that's allowed it to happen, you start killing that industry slowly. And money makes a big difference there. So our social return on investment there is very, very high for what we get for what we put in. So that's a couple of reasons. It's the most evil thing, it's solvable, and it stays high. Social roi.

There's other issues which are really important. Environment so important. Mental health is so important. I'm on the board of a suicide prevention charity as well, which is really, really cool. Doing some very cool stuff there.

Drug abuse, family violence, These are very important things they have to fix and slow to fix. We need to fix. We need to fund them. This one is actually money goes a long way in fixing that problem. And I just come back to my value purpose statement is I don't want to live in a world where you can human traffic and have sex lives. Yeah. I just don't want to Live in that world. I feel sorry for the, the pimps doing it. I feel sorry for the kids that have been abducted. I feel sorry for the perpetrators that are. That think that's a way of living. Like I just think all of it's incredibly sad and I don't want to live in a world that happens and I can do a little, I can do my bit about it.

Yeah, no, that's cool. Yeah, there's just, there's just. No, there's no winners in, in that environment or in that world. Like. Yeah, even the people who think they're winning, they're definitely not winning. Yeah, no, that's not good. Good on you for doing that. And so. Yeah, so, so that was kind of like part of the DNA of. So when did you start gravity labs?

Around six years ago.

Okay. And so that, that was, you know, from day one. That was going to be a focus of, of where.

Not really. Yes, that was very inherent in my value set and we were just trying things out and got off the ground and then. But as soon as we became successful that got put into place very quickly. It was like, oh, we've actually made some money. You know, I kept my salary and different things like that. At that point in time, you know, it's just like, yeah, really going through. Right. What do you need? What do I need? Yeah, you know, and what would I rather do? You know? Yeah, nice.

So values. Is that from your parents, you think? Were they a big influence in sort of forming who you were or do you think you were sort of born this way or you sort of mentioned your. The faith based side of things.

The faith stuff is massive. Went to a Christian school as well. Some people hated it. Put them off. But for me it put me around a good group of people and it, and you've got this inherent message that's always good. Life is more than yourself. Suffering is part of life that's normalized. That's the biggest mental health problem I think is avoiding suffering. You know.

Like the Christian faith is like suffering's part of life.

It's all part of it.

Yeah. And doing something bigger than yourself and doing something outside of yourself is super part of it. So yeah, I just like, that's been my definition of success is to like what can you do outside of yourself? Yeah. While being joyful and peaceful and getting all the internal benefits. You can have it all.

I 100 agree. I, you know we've got a 10, almost 11 year old daughter. Resilience is, is like that's the thing if that's the one thing she learned in school, I'd be happy with that. Just the ability to keep. Keep going when you think you can't.

It's our epidemic. It's our epidemic, you know, so that our. Our generation's addicted to comfort and convenience. And I was like, yeah. And it's like, that's the opposite of resilience.

Yeah. 100. Yeah. And I just think if you've got resilience, everything else will come because you'll be willing to learn, you'll be willing to do, you know, it's just. For me, it's just like the foundational quality that a human needs.

Yeah. Suffering and difficulties are coming. That's normal. That's okay. That's so okay. If you're not doing well, it's okay to not be well. It's expected you won't do well sometime this year. Every day we've got moments where we don't do well. That's okay. But there's society pretending that you should do really well at everything and be successful.

Yeah. Yeah. And that we should be somehow. We should be protected from the sort of slings and arrows of misfortune, but.

And everybody should like to. So actually. Yeah. Lucky if somebody likes me. Yeah. Yeah.

And history would dictate that that's possibly unlikely for any or all of that to actually be a thing. So.

What a weird goal anyway. Like.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

You get three or four people that really like you. Right. That's. That's really nice.

Yeah. Super cool. So B Corp, you've got your B Corp logo on your background screen there. You've got your cheeky little best for the world, which will. We'll unpack what that means. Well, I'm able to unpack what that means right now. So obviously Gravity Lab certified B Corp. There's kind of like a game within a game within the B Corp world, where if you excel either in one of the five parts of the assessment, so governance, workers, community, environment, or customers, if you score really highly in one of those sections, you will be nominated and maybe get a best for the world for governance or environment or what have you. And then there is also, I guess it's kind of like the top kind of B Corps, the actual best for the world, one of the highest scoring ones. You know, I think it's normally like the top 10 that get that sort of best for the world recognition. And so you have got one of those. So maybe before we get into the detail of that, when did B Corp first Pop up on your radar.

I think it was 20, 21. We had somebody working for us. Ken Holly.

Who initiated the process, said we should really do this. At the time I was busy thinking about other things, trying to keep this business going, to be successful and look after human trafficking work and the charities and the staff. You know, here's the other thing, right. I talked about human trafficking and charities and New Zealand. I actually really support New Zealand businesses and I really support our team. Our team is so important so we can just look after our team and didn't do anything that. That's cool as well. But so I wasn't. I didn't really know what it was and he said we should do it for us. The really nice thing, and this is what other people jealous of our process was it was a certification of what we were already doing.

Yeah.

So we did have to document a couple of things and you know, go, oh, that's our policy. Have we been that down somewhere? No, but like we had to document some bits and pieces, but for a lot of. It was already in place, which made it much, much easier for us. Yeah.

And yeah, because I had a couple of sort of calls with Ken just to help him navigate a couple of things here and there. And yeah, it was clear from conversations that you were doing a lot of. Because so you. You got the best for the world. It was for the community.

And you're. So you unlock what's called the impact business model called designed to give. Because you. Because how much of your profit do you give away? It's.

Well, we give away 30 of profit directly. Yep. And then we do discounts to some local charity. But the other thing is we're owned by charity lab.

That was it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Predominantly. So even the money that goes to a charity, so it kind of like it. We. It's closer to giving away 80 or 90.

Yeah.

In reality.

Which is massive. And kudos to you for doing that. Yeah. I think. Yeah. You're one of those classic companies who. You were a B Corp in all but the certification. And I. I think most of the companies that we help with B Corp and we are doing at the minute are similar ilk. It's like we've been doing this. It's been in our DNA since, you know, kind of day one. We just need to, like you say, just document it and work out some of the detail and maybe. Oh, we hadn't thought about that yet. Let's. Let's start doing that. That's super cool.

So, yeah. Highlights from the journey Good, the bad, the unexpected. It seems like it was pretty easy overall. Like you say you were kind of doing it.

It takes time. It takes time. There's. There's a process I didn't realize of it was proper auditing process. Yeah. Which means. It means something they've actually gone through and they've checked it. There's comparability in the market. There's audit. They've gone through, they've checked everything. And that's annoying when they go, you do this. Yeah. And they're like, prove it.

How do I prove that? You know, like, which is, which is a good process. And it gets you thinking. So I really agree with that. It. We didn't have a lot of problems. There were some little areas we would have had to prove. But I could imagine if, if you have to prove half of the stuff that you're doing in great detail, you know, which is hard to do, then it can be very time consuming. It takes a lot of effort. Yeah. But it's worth it. It's definitely worth it in terms of. Even if it takes you a long time. It's. It's. They're just asking you the questions about areas that matter.

Yeah. 100%.

And so what. What does being a B corp mean to you now that you've got it? And obviously, you know, first time round, best for the world. That's super impressive. There's been a few that have done that, but. But not, not everyone, you know, clearly gets a better for the world first time, first certification. So. Yeah. What, what is it? What has it sort of meant to you to get the certification?

Well, it's been interesting because it was originally just a problem, maybe more in hindsight once we figured out, hey, we go, look, we're social enterprise, we believe in these things. These are bad. And we've been audited that it. Somebody else has come and looked at us and said, yeah, these guys are legit. They are doing it. Which. So there's a lot. It's kind of helped us change our storytelling because originally in the beginning, like, we didn't like to tell our story around that. We believe in doing good and we believe in, you know, helping out. Maybe it's tall poppy, maybe it is what it is. And now I'm much more passionate. Let's be a model where do business with integrity. Look after your people really well and try and make a difference in the world. Those are pillars for successful business and successful life. They all stack on top of each other. The better you can do around these blue Core barriers, the better you will do as a commercial business. I'm sold on that. So they start helping you out in many, many different ways. So asking those questions and going through each of these and thinking through these areas helps you improve as a business? Yeah, 100%. And I was surprised. I like I said I didn't initiate the B corp process, but hearing other companies going with us because we're a B corp or reaching out to us because we're a B corp I really like and I would be the same to some degree. I was like, ah, these sound like our people, these people. And for us I've tried to articulate the story or articulate it of like why does it matter to a client? Why does it matter to a utilities company or manufacturing company or a tech company? And I go, it's because we're hyper people who give a damn. We actually care about outcomes, we care about making a difference. We've got very high.

Staff retention which is really important in our industry. So that's one thing you really want to make sure the people you're hiring are going to be there for years time. So we, we do very well at that. But also you want to make sure they actually care about it. It's not just about this month's profitability or this month's paycheck or it's not about making the most out of a financial situation. And I think that story is really important and people would be, they've got a bit more soul to them that they're not trying to just maximize, get the best commercial transaction in place, you know?

Yeah, no, 100% agree. I think.

There'S a real collegiality amongst the local, regional, national, international B corp community where it's almost like a bit of a pre screening. It's like, okay, these people are a B corp. They can't be complete idiots like you say. There's a bit of depth to them. They're obviously trying to do the right thing here. So there's an alignment there. And it's generally in my experience relatively easy to get stuff done with other B corps because they're kind of like, oh cool, yeah, you're kind of like you're one of the community. Yep, cool, we want to help you. I think that kind of echoes back to what we were talking about earlier on, you know, that sort of the lack of community, lack of that connection that we have in our sort of families and societies more broadly again in sort of western democratized countries where having that sense of community where if you're having a tough time, you've actually got something you can go to rather than thinking that you have to be. I guess it's that fine line between resilience and like, yeah, okay, actually, I just need to tough this out versus, actually, I'm having a really tough time. I need a community that I can go to and say, hey, can you just give me a hand here? And I think it's, it's finding that, that balance. But, yeah, definitely feel that sort of sense of community and, and growing. You know, like I say, I mean, we were B Corp number 6, and it used to be the same 6B Corps in the room going, oh, hi, you guys still a B Corp? Yeah, we're still a B Corp. Cool. Whereas now it's like you go to. I was up in Auckland a couple of weeks ago for the B local. It's like, so who are you? Okay, you're a B corp. Well, when did you certify? Like, who are you? Tell me your story. Like, this is. We're getting to this point now for actual community. So, yeah, that's quite cool. It's interesting that you mentioned that I was going to ask you about hiring and the team. The tech world at the minute obviously seems to be what you hear. You know that the rumor on the street is it's kind of like every man or woman for themselves. It's like a bloodbath. People just leaving companies and the whole, I guess Covid, you know, suddenly. Well, actually I can get a job working for a company in, in Silicon Valley because they don't care if I'm remote. And you can stick your job because they're paying me four times what you can pay me. And it's US dollars. So I'm good, thanks. But you're. You're finding that you're keeping people. People are attracted, I mean, because the team's obviously grown since you started it. The values have been core from day one. Clearly that. That's just attracted the right people.

I think it's attracted the right people. What we found is.

From a values point of view is most people are saying the same stuff. We believe in flexibility and autonomy. We agree in learning, development, agree in our people. We try to look after them. But lip service and what happens, we, we. So I've been told. And so I believe as we live them out, and that's why people go, oh, this is actually different. We've heard all this before, but you guys actually different. So quite a lot of our new starters would be like, wow. This is way different to any place I've worked before. And I'm just like, oh, like I kind of get it. But I'm still, I'm still pleasantly surprised every time I get mused.

What do you mean? Yeah, I think, yeah. I mean again, that was my reflection on working in big corporates is they'd have the values and you know, the credo, what etched into stone, but they just ignored it every day and it's like, well, but that's actually really good stuff. And if we actually live by that, this place would be really cool and I'd feel like I have a sense of belonging here. Yeah. There's a guy, I can't remember his name. He was head of alumni affairs at Notre Dame University. And his quote is, don't tell me your values. Show me where you spend your money. And I just think that's, that's so true because there's so many companies who've got, oh, these are our core values and this is what our vision and mission and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, yeah, but you're not actually doing that on a day to day basis and if anything you're actually working against that with what you're doing and the clients you're working with and. Yeah. So. But I think increasingly people are seeing through that. Yeah.

So no, I think it's where I'll probably run the hiring as well. With us here, we've got to finally we've got a reputation in the employer market like most people. Like, oh, we've heard good things about you. We've heard things. We've got a good reputation industry from people talking about. But we're fussy because you've got to not just hire someone technically brilliant. They've also got to understand business. They've also got to be responsible level and they've also got to have the value set.

Yeah.

And then the cultural fact and it's just, it makes it harder for us to hire.

But by being fussy a people, those type of people, like working with those type of people. And that's why retention's everything and we've done really well. And you know, I thank God like that this year by February I think we'd hide eight people. Wow. People moving around and different things and they're all really top people. Like it's like, where did these people come from?

But it just came together and it's like it's all starting to. That momentum's building. Yeah.

And so in, in the sort of day to day running of the business. It. I think this question might be an easy one for you to answer, but sometimes balancing purpose and profit, there's a tension there, you know, okay, we need to have, we need to have profit to be able to, to give to what? You know, to the charities. And this is. We want to do. We need to have profit to hire more people. We need to have profit to get new computers or whatever it is we need to do to keep the business optimized and running. So do you find, do you, are you conscious of that tension between purpose and profit? I kind of. My gut feel would be that you're pretty overwhelmingly committed to the purpose side of things and the money is kind of like taking care of itself because of that purpose. But yeah. Do you have like moments of clarity as CEO where you're kind of like, okay, I want to give that money, but actually we need to invest it in the business right now.

Oh, we invest a lot in the business. Like it's long term. The good thing about the B corp or the good thing about being purposeful is you're trying to make a long term difference. It's not about this month's this, I want to be really profitable in three years time so we can get more. There's always a perpetual three years time. So it's what's the right. So we keep a lot of money so that we've got safety nets. You know.

We want to hire the best people, we want to look after them. So we need money to look after them and we need money to pay them well. And we need money, if case we have, you know, a couple of months of slightly less work that we can still pay people, you know, because we're not driving this month's profitability. So we're not looking at layoffs around those things. If things don't go away, we go, what's setting us up for success? You know, oh, we've got to do a bit of extra work on this project to make things right. Yeah, let's do that now. We'll get the dividends of that in reputation and happy clients and happy staff. That's the big thing there. If you do what's right, you keep your staff happy because they know, they know if you're taking shortcuts or not. So they don't want to take shortcuts. They want to know you're doing a good job. So we do that to keep our staff happy. So we reinvest. Most of it gets kept, lots of it gets kept in the business to Keep a really healthy balance sheet to keep, you know, making sure we don't have cash flow problems because cash flow management, the business is really hard. But also just want to call out that we're very lucky around.

We work with a very specific and widespread problem around business process optimization and systemizing businesses and helping them to engage customers, boost sales, be more efficient. The business case for what we do is so solid, which means we can actually charge. Well, you know, we can charge market rates around these things and our market rates are good. So we've got a business that's mathematically very sound. There's other people that are doing certain social enterprises that their target market they're selling to or the problems they're solving aren't as financially viable. So it's harder for them. So it's a much bigger tension. So I just acknowledge that it's out of our industry that we work in. It makes it easier for us to always give.

Yeah, nice. Yeah, I guess you've got a real value based sale. It's like how much does this problem cost you? Well, yeah, and it's cost every day now.

It's like, well, how many people are going to hire to solve that problem? Oh, we probably need to hire three more people on our service team. I'm like, well, what if you gave us one person's salary and we could fix it for the next five years? Yeah, that's a pretty obvious thing.

It's a compelling argument.

We just didn't know we could. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's super cool.

Or it doesn't always have the track record. We've got a very high track record because we customize. You know, we very, very. We don't really have unsuccessful projects in that, that vein. You know, we, we hit the outcomes because we only do what we say we can do.

Yeah.

Because we're not desperate for work. So we won't say that we do what's within our skill sets and expertise. So it's very predictable that we will get a good outcome. Yeah, it projects are risky in other industries. It could be scary. Like am I going to spend all this money? Am I going to get the value? Yeah, I hear you.

Yeah. Having been again working for a large multinational company years ago now who in fact they was it we had Salesforce implemented that wasn't too bad only as a sales CRM. But then they were, yeah. Integrating three global units so North America, Europe and Asia Pacific trying to get them all onto the same ERP system. And America and Europe chose SAP Asia Pacific. In their wisdom chose Great Pain, Great Plains, which became known as Great Pains. It's just like as a bottom of the rung sales rep even I could kind of go, surely just all having the one same system like that just makes. That makes more sense in my head.

But we want our problems to go away. Like I think about this. Where do I. I talk about the blind hope of the hiring manager, the blind optimism. I just need this problem to go away. Yeah, I think Tim could do it. He'll be good enough. It's like, no, no check. Who you hire is the most important thing. But same with technology. I just want this problem to go out. Hopefully this will work. Yeah, I was talking with someone.

A while ago and they've got seven Salesforce instances internationally. You know, big technology company. And then they came in, they had this project to consolidate them all. And I went.

Let me guess, 12 months on million dollars, project canceled. He's like, how did you know?

Pretty predictable that that was not gonna work. You know, like. Yeah, how about you take one of them and you combine it, you know, come up with a strategy and you know, and you do it step by step. You iterate what's. What's comprehensible, move in that direction. Big bang doesn't work. Yeah, yeah.

You know, we invested in.

Yeah, we, we invested in a piece of it. Well, so I thought I was getting something completely different. And yeah, it wasn't. Wasn't a great experience, but I managed to get my. Get my money back for it and then get this, the piece of software that I should have bought first time around. So yeah, the struggle is real, particularly for the non IT savvy. You know, you're kind of like, you're taking the marketing on. On sort of face value and then you actually get the thing to go. That's not what you said. So what's all this about? Yeah, quite frustrating that was. But yeah, took me eight months. I think I got my money back. So Brazilia's paid off.

So I guess. Yeah, just back to the B corp. The you guys. Did you guys have to do the, the update to the constitution as part of your certification or were you just.

Yeah, no, no, just. Just to do it.

And, and I'm guessing for you, easy because you were kind of like, we already do that. So for people who aren't aware of it, there's, there's this updated requirement that you need to add to your, your company constitution, which if you're in New Zealand, you probably don't have a constitution because Most companies don't, but there's a purpose clause and a stakeholder clause which in summary is basically saying beyond just making money, we, we have a sort of a core purpose and whilst operating the business we will at all times consider the. On our. All our stakeholders, which includes our workers, our community, that we're in the planet, our suppliers, our customers, blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, I'm guessing for you pretty easy. But do you have board members or other people involved in the business who you had to sort of.

Like I said, we own by the trust. There's another trustee of the trust that went, you know, we keep up to date but we're pretty clean. Right. We can just make decisions. So we did have a constitution but the, the clause was very well written and wasn't onerous. Like they'd obviously thought about it. Like this is a very generously, safely written clause. So easy for us to include.

Yeah. And like I say, you were clearly already doing that anyway.

Yeah, we agreed with that and so, yeah, we'll put that in running.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. And have you looked at or have you had any introduction to what the particulars. Obviously in 2024, 2025, they're looking at updating the impact assessment. So at the minute you. There's the five sections, you just, you've just got to get over 80 out of 200 points. They're looking at moving it now to possibly being 10 sections with minimum requirements across each of the 10 sections. So you can't just score really well under workers or community and then do nothing under environment. Have you, have you heard about that update?

Heard about it, delegated it.

Teflon shoulders. But thoughts at a high level. Do you think having minimum standards is. Is a good idea or do you think the way it is is. Is kind of good enough?

I think having minimum standing gives more credibility to be caught, you know. Yeah. Actually fought through everything. There's some things and I think we had it easier right. Being a professional services organization where when you come to environmental and sustainability supply chain management, we go back and salesforce is carbon net zero and stuff like that and have a bunch of policies. Our main provider is already known for being a good company in many ways and they also, you know, so our supply chains quite easy from that thing, but very tricky and. But supply chain management is at the heart of a lot of. A lot of what we need to change the environment and for people around the world. So I think it's good, I think it's good that we've Put minimum standards. It makes it mean something. Yeah, I might complain when we do it. We don't.

No, grab the old one back please. Yeah.

But then assuming I've got a long trust that there's smart people think there's a reason that standard device.

Yep. I think that that seems to be that. You know, some of the feedback that B lab have had is that, you know, yeah, you could potentially get a lot of points in one section and score badly across the others. Therefore does that really make you a, you know, a business that's really trying to do good?

My only concern is we might lose some of the middle ground businesses who currently could become a B corp because they're doing really well in maybe one or two areas and would then be inspired and excited to look at doing better across the other ones because they're kind of, they're getting the benefit of being part of the community. Whether some of those will just go actually this is just too hard. So there's no point trying to. I think it's going to be a really fine line between. It's almost like gamification of it. It's like if the, if the end of level baddie is too hard to get, you're just going to give up. So I just kind of hope they don't make it so hard that it's out of the reach of small and medium businesses who are typically time and cash poor who maybe don't have the resources to put into a two year program to get the business to A level. But yeah, we won't know. So yeah, part of me is like yes, I think raising the bar. Fantastic. But then I also like I say, you know, we've got 0.01% of businesses currently a B corp. So it's clearly not too easy if only a small number of businesses have actually done it so far. There's a little bit of me about the whole, you know, you must meet this criteria versus just like do good and be rewarded for doing the good that you're doing and then work on how to be better where, where you can. Yeah. So I still haven't come down one way or the other. I think I'll need to see more and it'll probably be the same when we get called for recertification. I think in like years time will probably and it'd be interesting to see as well whether they roll it out by kind of going hey you're. Because we're, we're a three time B corp. They might go hey, this is your fourth Time around you get the new one because you kind of know what you're doing or whether they go because you've done so many on the old one will ease you into it. Into the new one. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how they roll it. They've been really good at when they have rolled out the updates to the assessment, it's generally been done very well and there's enough lead time and they let you know, hey, look, if you don't get your submitted by this cutoff date, you will be moving to the new one. So yeah, all of this will come out in the wash, I guess. Yeah. But interesting times. Never a dull moment in the world of B Corp, that's for sure. So I guess, last question for me, looking 10 years into the future, what does the B Corp movement look like to you?

That's a good question.

I think there will be a lot more uptake. I think a lot of people and it will mean a lot more. I think there'll be a lot more combining. I think once we've got higher uptake, we can start making a lot more business rules and pushing back, pushing back to our suppliers and to our customers and going well. Are you a B Corp? Are you certified? You know, there might be some other more similar tools out there, but I think it's going well. This really matters and this is a comparable framework. Then what are you doing there? And then I think there can be a more with that higher understanding that we'll be more looking to other people's scores.

That all governance is low and you're a so and so provider or what are you doing about that? You know, that you're audited, speedy. So much on trust and so much on personal relationships and all these different things and it's, we can get better than that. Yeah, it's great that you trust somebody but let's, let's see the goods, see how you operate your business. Yeah, I think it's a good lens. You take away the social good side. It's a good way of making business decisions. It should be part of RFPs, you know, like off going like we've proved these factors. Have you been audited around these factors?

Yeah, we're definitely hearing, hearing of that happen more and more particularly with sort of central local government, things like. Yeah. Infrastructure projects through like NZTA or other. Yeah. Sort of national bodies. There's definitely increasing interest in tenders now to say. Yeah, look, you know, methodology. Sure. Pricing. Yeah. Okay. What's your social and environmental performance. So, yeah, definitely feel that procurement and we're definitely seeing that. You know, and you mentioned supply chains. Everyone that we're helping with, B Corp, whether they're a service company or they've got a product or a widget or something, the vast majority have really poor visibility on their supply chains. So I think if you're, if you're currently in someone's supply chain, watch this space because in the very near future you're going to start to be getting some surveys coming from people who are B Corp going, hey, I just need to know what you're doing. Are you paying your staff well? What's your environmental impact? What's your impact on biodiversity? What's, what are your waste emissions and so on and so forth. So, yeah, I think, I think that supply chain pressure is really starting to build and it's going to come pretty soon.

And I think my parting thought is, and I like to see this, is that social. This isn't just about social, environmental good, like triple bottom line reporting. This is about good ways of running a business offering real value to customers, thinking for the implications that you have on the world. Looking after your staff, having good governance. That's how you run a successful business. It's helping you run a successful business which is really important.

So, yeah, couldn't say it better myself.

Anything else that you want to sort of COVID off or. That's top of mind. I'm exhausted for questions.

That you'd want to.

No, I think that just says it. Like, look after your people, think about, think about what you're doing. Like if you're struggling for profit and you're struggling around these areas and getting these fundamentals in place will help you. If you're doing okay, then what really matters at the end of the day? What sort of life do you want to live? What matters to you, you know?

Yeah. And, and you'll feel better for it on an individual level. That, that sense of meaning and purpose.

You're the most selfish, narcissistic person in the world. Think about what's going to give your life meaning and purpose. Right. Same same question, Stan.

Yeah, fantastic. Hey, well, it's been really cool to get to know you a bit more and just scratch a bit more underneath the surface of what you're, you know, what you're about and what Gravity Labs is all about. And clearly a just a super cool company doing some really cool stuff, which is why you were recognized as best for the world. So keep on doing what you're doing. Yeah, thank you so much. Have a great weekend. And thanks.

Hey, it's Tim here, that B Corp bloke from Grow Good. If you want more content on purpose, B Corp. How to do more good in the world as an individual or business, then you know the drill. Hit the like and subscribe. Check out some other videos. They're probably floating around here somewhere. You know how it works. Thank you so much. See you next time.